Chapter 2 - A Dead Woman’s Secret
Screams pierced the pitch-black room. The two young boys wailed as the sharp sound of breaking glass echoed near the patio doors.
"Eleanor!" Andrew roared, lunging forward in the dark. His hands caught empty air.
"Daddy! Help!" the older boy shrieked.
Flash!
The emergency backup lights kicked on, casting an eerie red glow across the mansion. Andrew spun around. Victoria was gone. The heavy velvet curtains near the garden exit were swaying in the cold night breeze, revealing a shattered glass panel.
On the floor, Eleanor was shielding both boys with her own body, her back turned to the door, ready to take a bullet for them.
Andrew dropped to his knees beside her, pulling all three of them into his arms. For a solid minute, nobody spoke. The silence was filled only with the sound of violent sobbing and heavy breathing. Andrew buried his face in Eleanor's hair—it smelled cheap, like industrial soap, but beneath it was the familiar scent of lavender and rain that he had craved for thirty-six agonizing months.
"It really is you," Andrew choked out, tears finally streaming down his cheeks. "My god, Eleanor... it's really you."
"I'm sorry, Andrew. I'm so sorry," she wept, pressing her scarred face into his chest. "They told me you were the one who ordered the fire."
Andrew went rigid. "What?"
Eleanor pulled back slightly, her emerald eyes filled with a terrifying mix of love and horror. "The night the estate burned... I didn't get out because I was trapped in the wine cellar. Someone locked it from the outside. When the firemen finally pulled me out, I was in a coma for six months in an underground clinic in Switzerland. When I woke up, Victoria was there."
"Victoria was in Switzerland?" Andrew felt a cold dread pooling in his stomach.
"She showed me documents, Andrew. She showed me transfer papers signed by you, sending millions of dollars to an offshore arsonist account. She told me you wanted me dead so you could claim my family's inheritance and marry her. She showed me photos of you and her at a resort just two weeks after my supposed funeral!"
"That's a lie!" Andrew shouted. "I spent those two weeks in a psychiatric ward! I was placed on suicide watch!"
"I know that now!" Eleanor cried. "I believed her for two years! I was terrified of you! I spent every penny I had trying to reconstruct my face, hiding under fake names, living in slums. But then... three months ago, I saw a live broadcast of you at a charity gala. You were holding our sons, and you looked so broken. You were wearing the ring I made for you out of raw tungsten. That was when I realized... a man who wanted me dead wouldn't still wear a cheap, worthless ring every single day of his life."
Andrew looked down at his left hand. The dark metallic band shimmered under the red emergency lights. He had refused to take it off, even when his board of directors told him it looked unprofessional.
"She manipulated both of us," Andrew whispered, the horror of the realization sinking in. "She kept you away while she slowly worked her way into my life, pretending to be the comforting family friend..."
"It’s worse than that, Andrew," Eleanor grabbed his lapels, her hands trembling violently. "She isn't just after your money. She's working with someone inside your family. Someone who has been poisoning you."
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Before Andrew could ask what she meant, Marcus rushed back into the room, holding a hand-held radio. His face was stark white.
"Sir! We have a perimeter breach! Armed men just rammed through the front gates in two black SUVs! We need to move to the safe room NOW!"
